Schlüsselfeld, Germany

Schlüsselfeld, Germany – Monday, June 26, 2023, 20:45 UTC, A large meteor fireball was observed heading northwest at 21 km/s, and ending at a height of 34 km above the ground. Fragmentation was observed, but the end speed was greater than 5km/s, so it is expected that most of the material burned up in the atmosphere. There is a chance that fragments less than 30 grams in size survived.

News and Video

Although considered a superbolide, this meteor event was not widely reported in the news and the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic reported as follows:

 …this relatively fragile meteoroid of probably cometary origin with a diameter of around 70-80 cm disintegrated significantly (see Figure 3) and the vast majority of its original mass was consumed during the flyby. Therefore, no macroscopically significant fragment of the original meteoroid, which would be worth a systematic search, with a high probability did not hit the ground…

Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic [Translated from Czech]

Bright glow in the night sky, a loud bang: At least one meteoroid has burned up over Bavaria. This causes excitement, many people exchange ideas. What users and experts say about the phenomenon –

Bavarian News BR24

Search Efforts

Search efforts are in progress, stay tuned here for updates.

Vincent Haberer of Germany has informed us that, the word Schlüsselfeld is derived from two German words, Schlüssel/Key and Feld/Field, so it is perhaps a good sign that the strewn field is located at location and it is all the more likely that meteorites may be recovered from this event!

We will post the coat of arms of Schlüsselfeld here as a good luck charm for the meteorite hunters in the field!

The area is probably decent for searching, if permission can be obtained.

For more information on this and other falls, join the discussion on social media, by clicking the links below:

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StrewnLAB Maps & Data

A precise trajectory solution was solved by Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic this solution was run through the StrewnLAB software to predict the search area shown below. Although the Czech team is correct that recovery is unlikely, our simulation indicates that smaller fragments may have survived, and it is worth the search.

Please download and review the Google Earth files below for detailed maps of the search area.

UPDATE 2023-07-03: I was able to cut the search area in half, by eliminating 1 of the 4 weather stations I used to generate the wind model. The furthest station was skewing the data unecessarily.

Weather Data

The weather data below is sourced from weather balloons, and publicly available via NOAA’s Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA). This data is downloaded and post-processed by the StrewnLAB algorithm, to account for changing weather patterns and weather balloon drift. The plots have altitude on the y-axis, in kilometers above sea level. The wind speed below 10km has large effect onthe drift of meteorites.

Jim Goodall

The author and founder of Strewnify.com, an automotive controls engineer, with a passion for physics.
Hancock, Michigan, USA | james.a.goodall@gmail.com | +1 586 709 5888

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